Today I am taking a look at the Acebeam E70 in Brass. This is one of the many variants of the Acebeam E70 that have been made, in many different materials, a few colors, and with LED choices. The one I have here has a new special high CRI large format LED which I will talk about here later on in the review. Acebeam sent this one to me as a gift, but I decided I would do a review for you guys too as this one is pretty cool I think.
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Pickup the Acebeam E70 at https://bit.ly/Acebeam
Packaging and Accessories
A few notes on the versions of this light, you can go for a black anodized aluminum version, as well as Copper, Stainless Steel, a bead blasted or rainbow titanium and a polished brass which I have here.
The packaging is a nice cardboard white box, with clear plastic window showing the light itself. In the case of the brass light it came sealed in a vacuum sealed bag, which I opened before I took pictures (a cardinal sin of flashlight reviewing). Acebeam sells this light with and without a battery, but everything else is included. A lanyard, manual, warranty card, and warning card, a Lanyard, extra orings, a felt drawstring bag, and a USB cable allowing you to use to charge the optional battery and use it as a powerbank.
Construction
Instead of covering everything on the design here I want to hit the highlights while you look at all the photos I have taken of the light. So somethings to note, the tail is flat so it tail stands well, on my version the electronic button in the rear is brass but this is normally stainless steel on the aluminum version.
The light uses a dual tube design, and they have chosen to mill out areas of the body tube to see the inner anodized aluminum blue tube. This creates a pretty unique look for a production light. It’s also a dirt trap, so probably not the light I would choose to go camping with but fun none the less. The body tube also has a place for 6 small tritium tubes milled, which isn’t seen commonly on production lights.
Threads are square cut and work well, although I had minor issues starting them on this light repeatedly. The head itself has holes drilled for style mainly and I like this look. The bezel is does unscrew and is quite sharp around the outer edges. The lens is mineral glass and the reflector has an orange peel. The internal connection points such as the springs are gold plated.
Size & Weight
The E70 is a medium sized 21700 light, with length coming in at a measured 128mm in length, 30.2mm in diameter at the head. Weight with the battery was quite heavy on this brass model at 284.8g or 10.04oz.
Retention
The light features a standard clip design with 2 screws, so your popular aftermarket clips will fit here. Kind of unique are the 3 predrilled locations for the clip. The stock clip is good but a little thin in my opinion for this lights weight. The front bezel is also pretty sharp, so I would personally think twice about EDCing this one inside a pants pocket, but it works great in a bag instead.
LED & Beam
There are 3 LED options available in most but not all of the E70 varients. The base models use a Cree XHP 70.2 LED in either 5000k or 6500k at 70 CRI. Optionally on many but not all of the models there is a new Getian GT-FC40 LED at 4500k producing 95 CRI which is what I have. This required a driver change as well as this LED runs off of 12V instead of the 6V for the Cree. You take a decrease in performance though with the High CRI option at 2800 lumens instead of the 4000 the XHP 70.2 produces.
The beam is a hot round center with some tint shift a rosy corona out into the spill. At distances this is mostly a flood light with the orange peel reflector and the massive doamless LED. It’s more pleasant to use in my opinion then a mule style flood since it does have a bit of optic but it’s not a thrower. Quite nice for normal tasks.
Heat and Runtimes
I did my runtime testing with the optional Acebeam branded 5000mAh battery. Output on the GT-FC40 LED in my light here is somewhere between 2500-3000 lumens in turbo, and step down came at 1 minute and seems timed. It then ran at 35% relative output for 90 minutes, stepping down a few more times for total output at a little over 2 hours. While this is producing a lot of light, it’s certainly not the most efficient LED or driver combination I have seen. It also produces a significant amount of heat, that builds over time with this light in a pretty linear fashion. You are going to want gloves or turn it down for sustained use, max heat was at 1:30:00 at a crazy 84.9C (185 F).
UI
The UI here took me a few times to get used to, but the more I use it, it’s become a good UI that builds in an element of safety. To turn the light on you can double press the tail switch to turn the light on in low, the light does have memory so if it’s recent it will turn on in the last mode used excluding turbo. Once on, long press and hold to advance into the 4 available modes. Double press to turbo, triple to strobe. The light also has moon light mode which you can access from off by long pressing, as well as lockout. Lastly to turn off it’s a simple quick press to turn off. This seems to be a change over previous versions of the E70.
Recharging
Charging is not built into this light. Acebeam sells an optional 21700 battery for an additional cost that has a USB-C plug on it. Recharging this cell took 2:07:00 to charge. You can use standard cells inside the E70, but you need to use a longer cell, like something that’s protected or a tall button top.
Conclusion
My conclusion on the Acebeam E70 is it’s a nice higher end model of production flashlight with a lot of nice features that have been well thought out. I love that Acebeam continues to offer LED tint choices, and on this model different versions of LED’s. For an application like this I will take the GT-FC40 LED every day over a XHP 70.2, especially when I can get a warmer tint and high CRI.
The brass and copper versions of this light are quite heavy with a battery, so if you were planning to use this as an EDC I would get one of the lighter versions like Titanium or even the Aluminum which also happens to be the most economical. I like that they included a standard clip configuration here so if you want you can further customize the light. I wish they offered a smooth bezel in the box too, this would make EDC in a front pocket a more pleasant experience. That said this is a bigger light and not one you will probably find me EDCing in my pants pocket often as a result. I will use it often for going on walks, etc.
I can recommend this one without reservations, especially with the GT-FC40 emitter, it’s got a wonderful tint in my opinion and produces enough lumens for most tasks. That said it does get quite hot, but this isn’t because of the LED choice itself.
Pickup the Acebeam E70 at https://bit.ly/Acebeam